About this title: Charlotte Brontė's last novel--a highly autobiographical one--tells the story of Lucy Snowe, a cold young woman who becomes a teacher at a school for girls in Brussels, where she falls in love with a fellow teacher, M. Paul Emmanuel. The plot parallels a situation in Brontė's own life, when she studied in Brussels in the 1840s and became involved in a mostly one-sided romance with a professor. Her father requested a happy ending to the story, but the best she could do was to supply a somewhat ambiguous one that has provided a puzzle for Brontė scholars since the book was published.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Dell Publishing, Budapest
Date Published: 1967
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. No rips or tears in book's pages. SMOKEFREE. No writing. The front cover has a tear. Text in Hungarian. 566 p.; 21 cm. A novel. read more
Edition: Reprint. First published in 1853;
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Panther Books, Ltd., London
Date Published: 1972
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Light spine creasing/obvious edgewear; binding strong; pages tanning but clean and unmarked; 524 p. Glued back soft cover; General audience; Considered unique among 19th romance novels. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Bantam Classic & Loveswept, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780553212433ISBN:0553212435
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Bantam Classic & Loveswept, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780553212433ISBN:0553212435
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Bantam Classic & Loveswept, New York, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780553212433ISBN:0553212435
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd
Date Published: 1998-04-01
ISBN-13:9781853260728ISBN:185326072X
Description: Very Good. Paperback. Very light wear on cover. Pages very clean, binding very tight. A bit of writing inside front cover. (tpb, class) read more
Description: Used; Very Good. Covers have some wear, including around edges, at corners and at spine; light reading wear; otherwise book is in great shape. read more
"Reader, I heart Ms. Bronte! Reading Villette was like reading a huge epic that I was so emmersed in that I walked in Lucy Snowe's shoes, I felt what she felt. How many authors can do that to you?
Lucy Snowe is difficult to get to know at first. In fact, she is difficult to like. This is deliberate; she tells you about other people, what they think, what they feel, but precious little about herself, of whom she appears fiercely private. Only as the story unfolds does she start to let you in - I remember being surprised when she showed such tender, gentle thoughts and actions towards the sick daughter of her employer; that, I believe, was the first glimpse of emotion from Lucy and it really endeared me to her. Lucy Snowe's name was not an accident - Bronte toyed with Lucy Frost for a while before settling on Snowe. She also allows us to see her as others do: "Crabbed and crusty" said Ginevra, a pupil at the school, and "unfeeling thing that I was" written to her in a letter. The point is, she isn't unfeeling at all. She is lonely and trying to make her way in an unfamiliar world. Lucy's past is only hinted at but it appears to have been an unhappy one.
Brontes prose is gorgeous, Villette is such a richly embroidered account of a young woman trying to make a life for herself in a foreign country and fighting for independence and friendship. This book isn't a romance in the same way that Jane Eyre is. I wasn't sure for a long time who the leading man would be (in fact he doesn't even appear until the second half of the book). And it isn't love at first sight, we watch it grow.
I absolutely adored this book and it is now a firm favourtie of mine. I finished it last night and I finally closed the book in a daze. I don't want to give anything away, but I was not expecting what happended at the end at all. That came completely out of the blue for me.
"Finally, I finished Vilette! I am proud of myself for this because I cannot remember the last time I could finish a classic book as thick as this. If you have read Jane Eyre, you will find things in Vilette that remind you of the previous novel. Lucy Snowe, the heroine, is also a woman dealing with education (Jane is a governess, while Lucy is a school teacher). The story is seen from the first person of view as well. That is why many readers consider Charlotte Bronte's novels as autobiographical. Okay, this book is thick and the font is super small, yet I could not put it down. Just like Jane Eyre, Villette just captured me and , I have to say, the male characters are the elements that made me keep reading the novel. I do not understand how Charlotte Bronte could always captivate me with his male creations *sigh*. In Vilette, M. Paul Emmanuel is Lucy's Mr. Rochester. Dark, rough but deep inside a loving person, M. Paul Emmanuel slowly enters Lucy's heart. The funny thing is M. Paul Emmanuel starts being exposed only from the half of the book. This is not a love story that is full from passion from the very beginning. The love does not happen suddenly like that, it grows. You know what, I wish I could write a more intellectual review of Vilette, but I just cannot do that. Not because the novel is stupid but because it is beautifully full of emotion, and as a female reader, I cannot help getting touched by it.
Ps: Oh by the way, have I mentioned that M. Paul Emmanuel is sexy? *fan-girlish grin*"
"I picked this up at the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore while I was in Paris for several reasons. I wanted to buy something at the store because it's totally awesome (google it), I am a huge huge fan of Charlotte Bronte, and this book is based off her own experience in Belgium, another place I visited in Europe.
I don't care what other people have said about this book but I absolutely without a doubt loved it. I already love and cherish Charlotte Bronte's writing but this took it a notch higher. But it's not an easy read. It really helps to understand what Charlotte had just gone through as she started writing and finished writing this book. She was 1 of 6 kids in her family. Two of her oldest sisters died when she was young. Soon after she started writing this book Charlotte's other 3 siblings died, in the span of 6 months. That included her famous writer sisters Emily and Anne.
These tragedies stripped away all pretentious formalities that I think Charlotte was accustomed to, formalities that we as a society are accustomed to. She wrote a book based around a book that most people have a hard time writing about, Loneliness, but Charlotte was qualified to write about. She came from a big family and by the time she was in her 30's she and her father where the only ones left. Charlotte eloquently penned an emotion that can be difficult to read, understand, and live through.
In that respect I think she's a master, and I love her."
"Another semi-autobiographical tale from Charlotte Bronte, based upon her time spent teaching in Belgium. This is not a novel of page turning excitement, but a lovely tale of one woman's battle to maintain her independence.
It's very interesting how the author brings characters in and out of her tale, and ties them all together in the end. Along with that, Bronte's gorgeous prose and all those large words that make you want to go running for the dictionary.
A lovely tale, one to savour like a fine red wine or chocolate, and an old classic worth rediscovering (or to discover for the first time). If you enjoyed Jane Eyre this is worth checking out."
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